wrestling / TV Reports
The Cyber Sunday 2008 Breakdown
October 29, 2008 | Posted by
| Cyber Sunday 2008 by J.D. Dunn When was the last time a hold was really barred? Well, I guess there’s Taker’s Gogoplata, but that’s really kind of a singular event. It’s not like it was widely used. Rey hits a somersault plancha early, but Kane quickly takes over and goes to work on Rey’s back. Rey doesn’t do much outside of blocking Kane’s charges. He hits his Wheelbarrow Bulldog, though, and goes for the 619, but Kane nails him with a clothesline. That gets two. Rey dropkicks a chair back in Kane’s face and hits a Tornado Inverted DDT. That sets up the Arabian Facebuster for two. Kane sets the steps in the corner but gets drop-toeholded into them. Rey fells the big guy with a series of chairshots. Kane suckers him into another 619 attempt and goes for a chokeslam, but Rey counters to a rana, hits the 619 and finishes with the springboard splash at 10:22. Like most Evil Kane feuds, the buildup promises a new level of violence and hatred, and all we get is Kane losing a plunder match. *3/4 Bourne wins handily with 69-percent. That’s pretty impressive for someone who was “just an ROH spotmonkey who would never make it above jobber.” Not that I think he’s winning or anything, but the fans seem to like him. Bourne hits an AJ Styles-ish dropkick. I wish he’d do the pose. Matt grounds the match, but Evan is always a step quicker, including a nice counter of the Side Effect. A high knee and huracanrana follow, but Hardy knocks him off the apron. Back in, Bourne hits his awesome standing moonsault for two. Bourne tries an Asai Moonsault, but Matt breaks it up, wrenching Bourne’s mid-section. Matt goes to work on the ribs with an Abdominal Stretch and a kick to the ribs. Matt goes for Splash Mountain, but Bourne uses the Rey Mysterio counter. He slugs his way back but gets stopped cold with a Side Effect. Matt comes off the second rope – right into a spinning wheel kick. Bourne hits a jumping back kick for two. A flying double knee gets two more. Matt ducks a kick and rolls him up, but Bourne tilt-o-whirls into a wakigatabreaker. SHOOTING STAR PRESS… misses. Matt finishes with the Twist of Fa-NO! Bourne reverses to a backslide. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Matt kicks out and finishes with the Twist of Fate at 11:09. Good stuff, as Evan Bourne really had the fans believing he could pull it off at the end, and that’s really the biggest goal in Cyber Sunday matches. *** The fans voted to see this tag match with a narrow 39-percent. JTG overpowers Morrison and then the Miz. Cole and Lawler talk about King’s underwear, so I kind of go to a happy place until the horror is over. When I come back, Shad presses JTG out onto M&M. Lawler gives love to JTG. Lawler’s markdom for CT is almost as funny as Don West and LAX. Miz and Morrison use CHICANERY~! to take over on JTG. The match bogs down as the fans realize that maybe the most popular team isn’t the most fun to watch. JTG rolls into the hot tag, and Shad cleans house. Oh, but there’s more CHICANERY~! behind the ref’s back, allowing Morrison to hit the flipping neckbreaker for the win at 10:11. Miz and Morrison are great, as always. Cryme Tyme is good in beatdown situations and cutting promos, but when it comes to working a match, they get exposed pretty quickly. ** Santino and Honky have a dance-off, and Santino cheapshots him. Well, he wasn’t going to win the dance contest. Honky dominates early, raking Santino’s eyes on the ropes. Beth trips him up in full view of the ref, so Marella gets disqualified at 1:03. Well, that was money well spent. [N/R] Vickie Guerrero messes up the announcement on the voting, saying it will be an “I Quit” match but then corrects herself. This would seem to favor the Big Show, who knocked Taker out last week. Show tosses Taker around early but misses a chairshot against the post. Taker grabs the chair and uses it to crush Show’s trachea. EVIL INTENTIONS~! That gets an eight count. They slug it out back in the ring, and Taker goes for the chokeslam. Show reverses to his own but gets DDT’d. Show misses a charge to the corner and gets clotheslined. That gets a nine. Taker misses a charge and crotches himself in the corner. That leads to the floor where Show chokeslams him through the announce table. Taker survives with the help of the longest nine count in the history of fighting. Back in, Taker hits another DDT, but Show comes back with the Power of the Punch. That gets another dubious nine count. Show hits him with a chairshot but reaches down for him and gets caught in the Death Rattle and gets choked out at 19:34. Good slugfest, but not as good as last month’s match. Undertaker’s refusal to get up without making Charles Robinson look like an idiot for steeeeeetching out his couuuuunt hurt the credibility of the match. **3/4 They take it to the mat early, and both guys escape the other’s finisher. Jeff goes for the Whisper in the Wind but gets dumped to the crowd barrier. HHH wisely just stands there waiting for him to get back in. Jeff tries again, but HHH rides him down into the Crossface. Nice. Jeff reverses to a Granby Roll, and Tazz actually calls it that. They take it to the floor, where Jeff hits a nice flying bodyblock that knocks Hunter into the barrier. Back in, the Whisper in the Wind gets two, as does the gun packet dropkick. Jeff sets up for the Twist of Fate, but Hunter shoves him away and goes for the Pedigree. Jeff counters *that* to the Jackknife Pin! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Jeff hits the Twist of Fate but goes up for the Swanton. Hunter gets the knees up! Jeff kicks him to the floor and hits a pescado (sort of). Back in, Jeff goes up, but Hunter crotches him, drags him into the ring, and finishes with the Pedigree at 15:31. That seems to finish off Jeff’s quest to become the WWE champion, although I don’t know if anyone outside of the Undertaker is over enough to take the title from HHH. The match was pretty good, even though Jeff’s wacky offense doesn’t really have a main event feel. ***1/2 Steve Austin is voted the special referee. Man, does Shawn Michaels look like a pussy now after months of trying to get Jericho over as a legit heel threat. Batista has not only buried Jericho the last month… he’s buried his SOUL! Speaking of buried, Austin’s pop dwarfs both guys’ put together. Jericho slaps Batista and takes a walk when the heat gets to be too much. Austin warns him that he’ll be stripped of the title if he tries to leave. Jericho returns and targets Batista’s leg. As Batista’s knee is tied in the ropes and he’s hanging upside down – Michael Cole: Jericho may have found an opening, King. Back in, Jericho clips Batista’s knee, and Batista sells it before Jericho even makes contact. Weird because the same thing happened when Jericho tried to sell Batista’s shoulderblocks in the corner early in the match. It’s like they’re on the same page but off by a paragraph or two. Jericho mounts him for the corner pummel, but Batista goes for the powerbomb. Jericho sunset flips him and goes for the Walls of Jericho. Batista comes back with a powerslam, but Jericho reverses the Demonbomb to the Walls of Jericho. Batista makes the ropes, and Jericho refuses to break, so Austin yanks him off. Jericho argues with Austin and runs right into a Bossman Slam from Batista. Jericho grabs the ropes to block a Demonbomb, but he comes off right into a clothesline. The spear misses, but Batista wins a battle on top and hits a flying shoulderblock. Jericho runs into a spinebuster but gets two off his own cover. Batista misses a charge and shoulderblocks Austin to the floor. Austin actually sells that more than he did getting paralyzed. Jericho hits the Codebreaker as Shawn Michaels runs down to replace Austin. Shawn refuses to give an honest count, so Jericho gets in his face about it. Shawn fakes him out with Sweet Chin Music, and Jericho turns around into the spear from Batista. Now, JBL jumps Shawn to prevent the count. Austin recovers as Jericho clips Batista’s knee. Randy Orton jumps Austin and replaces him as Jericho prepares to use the title belt. Oh, but Austin recovers and Stuns Randy Orton, who flops around and falls out of the ring. The Rock is watching this and thinking, “Man, that’s overselling the Stunner.” Jericho gets in Austin’s face now and blocks the Stunner, but he turns around into the spinebuster from Batista. That sets up the Demonbomb at 17:01. The silliness with all the refs just felt like the bookers were thinking “Oh, but he’s not doing anything; we gotta find something for him to do!” The psychology around the knee allowed Jericho to reverse some things, so there was a positive there. In the end, though, Batista just said, “Yeah, not doin’ that anymore,” and finished him off. With lagging ratings, Batista is probably their best bet to turn things around (although his initial Raw outing as champ did nothing toward that end). Batista is actually one of the few recent bankable commodities in terms of a ratings increase. However, the larger problem is that we seem to be in an era of an endless stream of transitional champions. Punk had a few weeks of euphoria before he receded into the background as champion. Jericho weaseled his way into the title and had a good run with Shawn, but after the ladder match it was all downhill. Even Big Dave now seems like he’s just keeping it warm until they can set up some combination of Cena, Orton and Batista for WrestleMania. **3/4 |
| The 411: Another PPV, another reset. They’ve adopted two different strategies with their world titles. HHH sets ’em up and knocks ’em down while the Raw title gets bounced around to whoever seems to have the hot hand. Not surprisingly, HHH’s title seems like a real title right now, while the Raw roster looks haplessly disorganized. There were a few good matches, but nothing that I can really point to as a recommendation for you to spend your money on.
Mild thumbs down. |
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